


That one night in October

by Jason_Jay_C



Series: Before the universe died, there was you [2]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Detectives, Gen, Halloween, M/M, mobster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2585708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jason_Jay_C/pseuds/Jason_Jay_C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midnight Crew VS Team Sleuth</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Night after night, it seemed to always fell into a tiring routine: the Crew will head out for a job in the banks scattering around town, at the main cargo harbour near the City Centre, or the casinos in the wealthy district of Midnight City. And during their supposed jobs, Team Sleuth would busted into the scene like some old black and white hero trying to make a name for themselves.

One night in particular, Slick was installing a bomb in the District Attorney’s big peach study with his Crew, A minute later, Problem Sleuth would be tossing him across the room and delayed them with the help of Ace Dick as the pathetic as ever Pickle Inspector tried to defuse the explosive item. It’s yawningly frustrating at how these three managed to rile up the Crew as bad as the Felts did. Hard to believe that two weekends ago, these people were invincible from their radar; not a bribed nor a clean cop, not a registered private eye, and definitely not a revolutionary political icon.

Just some random people that should not have even cross the Midnight Crew's path.

The Team popped out like weeds and no matter how many times the Crew tried to burn them at their roots, they kept coming back out. Like a zombiefied weed.

Boxcar, Deuce and Dick had broken through the French windows and fell down into the backyard garden during their rough housing. Slick and Droog, on the other hand, waged war against one hard-headed detective who was wielding an arsenal of sharp pointed utensils. Namely, some fine sharpened and polished knives. Slick would have wept at the beauty of these glorious knives if the wielder was not at the moment thinking of flinging them straight through his and Droog’s heads.

And flung it he did.

Goddammit, this guy wielded the knives like a pipe piper handling a herd of hypnotized children; skillfully talented and effortless. The two mobsters auto-parried to the best they could, but they were merely playing into the hands that had been dealt for them. The Inspector seemed to be working much more efficiently than he had a second ago.

Slick yielded to two close-ranged stabs in order to grab a hold on Sleuth’s two arms leading to a brief opening for Droog’s advancement towards the inattentive Inspector. Slick thought that Sleuth would dealt a lethal stab so to take out Droog and thus providing an advantage for Slick once he exposed his back. But instead, the blond had focused solely to lock Slick’s mobility and they wrestled into the adjacent room, leaving the other two nemesis alone.

Tumbling into the DA’s bedroom, Slick tried his hardest to bash the other’s head into the nearest sharp edges (the shelf edges, the bed frame, window panes) but Sleuth was busy making sure he wasn’t being bashed in.

“Gog damn it, Sleuth! Can’t you just disappear for ONE fucking night?!”

“Over my fucking dead unkissed body, Slick!” Sleuth missed a step and fell down, dragging a surprised Slick along. They fell loudly on the hard polished wood floor and kept on tumbling in close wrestle.

Slick growled out; “You’ll be dead soon if you don’t stop meddling with our jobs!” He pressed harder on Sleuth’s jugular until the other choke on spits. Suddenly, Sleuth found a renew vigour and flipped them over.

Now strangling the leader of the Crew, Sleuth spat out, “It’s the Crew who will be dead in the next 3 fucking minutes!” Slick was too busy trying to push the heavier man off to ponder on the specific moment of their supposed demise.

xxx

In the meanwhile, the powerhouse of the two groups were duking it out among the gardens of primroses, bluebells and multi-coloured tulips surrounded by the spherical white backyard lightings. To Boxcar, he almost cried at how romantic the setup was and was almost reluctant to beat the crap out of Ace Dick. But everything changed when Dick leisurely trampled on the bushes of floras in order to pull out one of the light pole so to impale Boxcar.

 As Dick defended himself at a pole length against the mighty jaw of a furious cannibal, Deuce gathered the fallen cords of the lighting system in his little arms. He had to duck and dodge the random poking of Dick’s pole several times as he flaunted the wires at the detective, who shouted in frustration:

“Get out of the fucking way before I punched you right in the snog, idiot!”

“Stop shouting at him you insensitive bastard!”

Boxcar retaliated by biting a chunk off the three meters metal pole. Deuce laughed at Dick’s annoyed cries as he ran off with the remaining length of the cords. He circled a huge tree on the side-lines and ran back to Boxcar, who was now being stab by the sharp bitten edges of the pole, with the cord end.

“Here, Hearts! Can you pull it for me?” Deuce asked bubbly in the middle of the tension. The interruption confused Dick that he accidentally paused in his stabbing for a second. It was a sufficient lethal pause that will cost him as Boxcar pulled the given cord and the leverage of the tangled cord had forcibly yanked Dick aside off of his feet. He lost his purchase on the metal pole and Boxcar was quick enough to catch it and in a large step, he hovered over a disoriented Dick.

The jagged end of the pole glimmered under the double moonlight, above Boxcar’s head.

“No hard feelings, chump.”

The jagged end went down like a rock.

xxx

Returning to the main scene of the crime, the intellect of the two groups silently stared at one another. One with confusion and one with challenged. The weird thing though, it was Droog that was confused at the confidence the Inspector had always lacked. Especially when the other was holding a carved pumpkin in his hand.

“Inspector,” Droog began with a sigh. “Why did you wasted your time carving a pumpkin if you had defused the bomb much earlier?” He asked calmly.

Frustratingly enough, the question seemed to brighten the detective even more as he stuttered to reply. “It is a-a special night, Mr Droog!” He smiled as he held the pumpkin at arm length. “Mr Sleuth had planned tonight to surprise all of you!” Droog’s eye widened by a fraction. “No one knew about tonight’s job.” He growled out menacingly, the cue-stick in hand was now poised threateningly over Pickle Inspector’s thin neck. “What gave it away, Inspector?”

Now a panicked stuttering mess, the Inspector held the precious pumpkin close to his chest. “It-It doesn’t mat-matter if there had-hadn’t been a job tonight,” Droog increased the pressure on his neck. “ _Please,_ Inspector…” Droog hissed, his dark eyes sharpened. “Do not lie, it’s… _rude._ ”

Somewhere in the distance, probably from down the hallway, a great grandfather clock chimed twelve times hauntingly. It echoed Droog’s declining patience towards the poor genius who finally responded in distress. ( _He was always sensitive at being called a rude person_ )

“Because it’s Halloween, Mr Droog!!”  

Diamonds Droog felt his brain was smashed into blankness at the force of the exclamation.

Later, he would claim that that was the reason to his rather late notice of the purple glow enveloping the Inspector. Just as he began to address the curious sight, the glow turned into a dense purple smoke and literally shrouded the Inspector tightly like a living entity. Out of calculative reflex, a decision made from the bits and pieces of the Inspectors ( _always important_ ) stuttering, Droog used his cue-stick to swipe off the pumpkin hidden behind the curtain of smoke.

But he hit only soft air. The smoke though, was getting denser and solider like a dark cocoon.

xxx

In the courtyard, Boxcar and Deuce was walking away from the bloody body behind them and thus were unaware of the smokes beginning to gather around Ace Dick’s body. The darkness shrouded him along with the metal pole piercing his body.

xxx

In the bedroom, Slick watched with widened shock eyes as the man above him began to be shrouded in purple smoke. Before the shroud was completed, Sleuth smirked down at Slick with mocking eyes, where bight emerald greens bled into iridescent rubies. He whispered down to a shock still Slick with self-contempt.

“Midnight is on our side tonight, _Slick_.”

The cocoon tightened rapidly, devouring the man, until it disappeared into a line of smoke, spiriting Problem Sleuth away. Slick slowly sat up, suspicious confused eyes darted to every corners of the empty dark room. “The fuck did you ran way to, shithead?!” he shouted, slowly getting up and manifested his black Iron Horse Hitcher in his hand. Slick didn’t want to admit that Sleuth’s last words made him anxious, for gog knows reason why, and it just frustrated him more.

The mobster hastily decided that Sleuth had disappeared from the bedroom and promptly left through the door. As soon as both of his feet stepped out of the room, the door slammed shut without him touching it. The unexpected slam almost had Slick’s heart popped like a heated balloon.

He jiggled the doorknob but the door was stuck. Was Sleuth in there? Slick felt his leg hair shivered. Looking down at the gap beneath the door, he noticed a trail of dense white mist oozing out languidly leading into the opened door of the study.

Carefully observing for any traps by the door, Slick entered quickly, to a scene of Droog on his hands and knees, under the grand study desk.

Slick walked out back into the hallway, closed the door and took a deep breath.

He re-entered the study and found Droog on his two feet, erected tall, cue-stick in hand and sharp as he was supposed to be.

Slipping into his leader suit, Slick get back to their original job. “What happened to the bomb?” He crouched on the left side of the desk where the chemical bomb was still. “It’s useless to tinker with it now unless Deuce is here. The Inspector had re-wired everything and the explosive chemical had been neutralized.” Droog mumbled his report as he glanced around the room for every two seconds. His fidgeting was very much out of place and annoyed Slick.

“What the hell is bothering you?! You’re fidgeting like a half-dead body and it’s fucking distracting!”

Droog merely glanced around more, looking for something. “The Inspector disappeared in a black smoke.” He said and now began to move around from one corner to another. Slick snorted. “You too, huh? Sleuth ran away just like that after spewing that ‘ _Midnight is on our side tonight_ ’ crap,” Droog stopped in his track and threw a furrowed brow expression to Slick. “Slick, did you know that tonight was a Halloween night when you plan this job?”

The leader cocked his head to the side, thinking back to why he was targeting the District Attorney at his house on this night. “Well yeah, this newbie District Attorney bumped into me in the street, made me dropped my black Scottish dog licorices, and then he trampled all over them when he was acting like he was sorry!” Slick shouted out with a large vein popping out on his head. “After all my planning of revenges on him, I found out that he was always a wimp on Halloween night so I plan on bombing him with a hallucination ‘hysteria’ bomb. Deuce made it personally under my order, by the way – What’s the matter with you, Droog?!”

The man in question was now shoving the items on the desk aside, tearing books out from their respective places on the bookshelves and ransacking every cabinets and drawers. “This is fucking important Slick; we clearly underestimated the Team’s absurdity tonight.” He said calmly albeit he was frantically tearing the room apart. “We need to get our hands on a certain pumpkin which seems to be the epicentre of the mystery.” Slick made a clear physical motion of; _‘what fucking pumpkin??’_

All of a sudden, a high pitched hysterical scream pierced the silent night.

“Boxcar.” The two surprised mobsters said simultaneously and quickly head towards the giant hole in the wall. Down below, passed the shattered pieces of the once beautifully designed French windows, Slick and Droog saw little old Deuce bravely shielding a trembling Boxcar from a limping, bloodied, metal pole pierced, living corpse of Ace Dick.

Spades Slick eyes bulged out from their sockets.

“Droog,” he poked his right-hand man in the shoulder. “I think my eyes are going bad from all those sleepless blueprints nights. Can you tell me what the fuck is going on down there?” With a blank face and cold calculative eyes, Droog answered monotonously. “There’s an undead Ace Dick trying to eat our Deuce as he protects undead-intolerant Boxcar.” He dead-panned. Slick nodded. “Right, uh, just checking…” Boxcar screamed again as Deuce’s attempt to deter the zombie by throwing plant pots causing some maggots from the rotting corpse to fly around.

“Uhh, I think we should help them.” Droog was already jumping off the second floor even before Slick had finished the order.

Slick took a second to put his hands together and shove his double middle fingers towards the green and purple moons. “I didn’t meant the zombie weed thing literally, you omnipotent cue ball!!”  

When all the members of the Midnight Crew assembled in a place, panic shouts were thrown everywhere:

“What the fucking shit, boss?? I’m sure I stabbed him enough to make him useless or something, I didn’t fucking know he’ll turn into a goddamn ZOMBIE!!!”

“Slick! Slick! I think the bomb might have leak and made all this thing happened!!”

“It’s not working anymore, idiot! You should have put a counter-deactivation mechanism in that- HOLYFUCKSHITASDFGHJKL- DROOG!! THE ACE ZOMBIE SPRINTED!!!”

Zombie Ace Dick, with his rotten flesh eaten by living wriggly maggots and one eyeball missing from its socket, sprinted with the target to consume the four warm living mobsters. Droog stepped up and changed his Ultraviolent Cue-stick to his old, almost forgotten, Diamondhead Spear. Using the long weapon, he successfully rammed the thing through the hunger-crazed Zombie Dick. The creature went limp.

Droog clucked his tongue at the sight with disgust. Now that the Crew had the opportunity to calmly observed Zombie Dick without the risk of them getting eaten, they were all pretty astounded at the changes he went through. The rotten skin was greyish blue, the maggots were infesting his empty socket, hollowed cheeks and his pole pierced and now spear pierced holed torso. Slick really wanted to throw up.

The ever calm Droog tried to dislodge the rotten body as he addressed Slick and the others. “Seeing what we’re going through here, it’s safer to leave the Team in their stupid games alone.” Droog frowned a bit at the difficulty to remove his spear. Well, granted since the spearhead is a huge fucking diamond. He got closer and meant to use his foot to push the body out. This made him grimaced at the thought of defiling his bull-leathered black loafers. He also thought he heard Deuce gasped out something.

Two maggot infested hands shot out and grabbed his sleeves.

The zombie was smirking, a bloody rancid thing, and his single milky white eye trained on Droog with a craze objective. He was again thrown off his rock and merely watched in slow motion as the zombie pushed himself deeper and deeply pierced himself through the spear to get closer. The most violent Midnight Crew member felt the foreign fear before the bite even happened.

The sharp pain shocked Droog out of his stupor and he immediately let go of his spear in favour of pushing the zombie off from severing his right arm. But the stubborn thing was like a mad dog on steroids sinking its jaw on its last meal; his teeth were tearing his skin, muscles tissues and was close to snapping his bone into two!

Suddenly, Boxcar, dear undead-intolerant Boxcar, grabbed the zombie from behind. His giant hands peeled the strong jaw off of Droog, who quickly jumped back from the zombie’s reach, and threw the undead to the other side of the backyard, straight through the brick walls surrounding the house, and out into the street lamp lit street. Droog dropped down onto his arse, with Slick holding on to him so he wouldn’t fall on his back ( _what a shame that would be)_ and nursed his bleeding teeth-marked wound.

Deuce came rushing out from the house carrying along a first aid and disinfectant. “Slick, I found some in the kitchen!!” He dropped all the kits beside Droog as Slick began to tear off Droog’s dear custom-made suit sleeve off. “Don’t whine about that, we need to wash that wound.” Slick ordered seriously as he began to pour disinfectant all over the wound and clean it up good. He really do not want any maggot-infested Droog in his Crew. Like, fuck no, never no.

Deuce searched his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar and two mini candy balls. “Go on, Droog. Eat the candy balls first before the bar.” He dropped the green balls into Droog’s unharmed hand as he broke a chip off the candy bar. “The candy balls have enough vitamin K to close the wound. And this enough chocolate would then increase your blood pressure for a few minutes to speed up the process.” The wounded man simply nodded before chewing on the candies. Green-tea flavoured. Always the thoughtful Deuce.

xxx

In the meanwhile, Boxcar had went after Zombie Dick. At least to make sure the thing flew far enough not to sprint back when Droog was being treated. He left through the rubbles remain of the wall and squinted in the dark. It wasn’t hard to locate the zombie. He was silhouetted by the streetlamp, his profile was crouching and his head was moving rapidly as if…

“Oh my GOG, what the hell are you eating there??”

Sensing something horrible was happening right in front of him, Boxcar ran and punched Zombie Dick aside with his huge meaty fist. Boxcar looked down in mortification. His eyes sting with the threat of manly tears at the bloody sight.

It was a family of felines. A mother cat and her litter, guts disembowelled, organs pieces everywhere and one of the kittens was still alive even as its lower half had been chewed off.

Never mind the threat, Hearts Boxcar was fucking crying at the sight.

Turning around in fury, Boxcar shouted at the lulled blood splattered face zombie, “The hell is wrong with you, Dick?! The joke’s gone far enough!!” He roared, grabbed the nearest dumpster and threw it straight at Zombie Dick. Boxcar had really hoped that being a zombie had made Dick lost most of his ridiculous strength. Right before the supposed impact, the dumpster suspended in mid-air. The mobster bristled. "Okay, he is still ridiculously strong as an undead. Fucking great..."

The dumpster was picked up vertically, and Boxcar saw that it was not Dick who had caught the flying weight. It was the stick-like Inspector, who was now sporting a green tinted skin, surgical scars scattered his face and he was holding the dumpster vertically in ONE FUCKING HAND. Boxcar rubbed his eyes and looked back at the bizarre sight with disbelief. The Inspector, silent with eyes as cold as ice, proceeded to throw the dumpster towards Boxcar in retaliation, but due to the miscalculation of strength used, the dumpster flew over Boxcar’s head, down the dark alley and crashed loudly against the stone dead-end wall.

An empty beer bottle rolled down from the darkness of the alley, stopping only after bumping into Boxcar’s large shoe. The giant man was eyeing the now three silhouetted figures in front of him. In the confusion, Problem Sleuth had also appeared along with his teammates. But just like his friends, he too had undergone a drastic change.

If the Inspector’s greenish and scarred skins were any indication of the Frankenstein monster, then Sleuth was screaming the iconic creature of darkness: his skin was bleached white, his hair had turned black, his eyes were glowing red with mischief and he was wearing darkness as his cloak. The most obvious sign to guess what he had become could be seen from his smirk. Two sharp canines poked from his bloody lips. Boxcar gulped at thinking that the reason Vampire Sleuth was appearing now was because he himself had finished... _f_ _eeding_. The mobster knew he had to warn Slick.

“ _Right, you better warn him soon…”_

The unexpected, smooth, silky voice made goosebumps rose all over Boxcar’s skin.

Suddenly, his vision turned red.

Vampire Sleuth’s eyes were directly in front of his, staring deep into his soul. Slowly, a talon hand rested on the giant’s warm cheek. “ _Hearts Boxcar, be a dear and bring your friends to the city cemetery. Alive, so we can have fun together, okay?”_ With red eyes and pupils dilated, the entranced mobster numbly nodded, and slowly left the street, returning to his Crew. Vampire Sleuth chuckled at the docile state of his new minion.

“ _I won’t be needing him as a minion that long. Dick wants him all to himself…”_

The vampire’s bloody red eyes penetrated through the darkness; through time and space as he appeared again between his zombie and Frankenstein friends. “ _Come along fellas,”_ he spread out his dark heavy cloak to surround the other two obedient monsters. “ _It’s time to prepare our tricks and treats for the guest of honour.”_

The cloak of darkness shrouded the three and disappeared in a trail of dark smoke. The street was dead silent except for the soft sound of a dying kitten coming from the alley. That too went silent fast.

Somewhere unknown, the carved jack-o-lantern of the Team Sleuth flickered but nevertheless, still fresh.

The All Hallows Eve had only just begun.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The showdown begins!

After much thought, the members of the Midnight Crew settled quietly in their black Mercedes 770K with Boxcar behind the wheel as the vehicle transported them fast across the city. They decided to head on back to their base so Deuce could properly examined Droog’s wound which was now temporarily bandaged. Those two were sitting in the back right now: Deuce was trying to feed Droog more of his chemically altered candies which the latter adamantly refused. Slick sat in the passenger seat, legs up on the dashboard, eyeing the driver with scrutiny.

He had a gut feeling that something was off with Boxcar.

He came back into the backyard with this daze look that had made Slick forced to snap his fingers multiple time. Then when he asked if the zombie was dealt with, he said: “It is fine, Slick. We should go now.” Which was suspicious as fuck; since when did Boxcar called Spades Slick anything other than ‘Boss’?! But Droog really needed to get back so Slick let it slide by keeping a close eye on Boxcar.

And Slick noticed lots of thing off about Boxcar, like, he didn’t asked about Droog’s condition, he didn’t asked Deuce if he was fine, he also didn’t opened the car door for Slick, and he didn’t bitched about Slick putting his leg up on the dashboard. The last part acted as a sign of warning to the other two in the back. Slick couldn’t really see them from his seat but he could imagine Droog eyeing Boxcar, calculating the scenarios of what changed him and what the brute was planning and Deuce would either be confused at Boxcar’s silence or Slick’s sudden liberty of dirtying Boxcar’s precious car. The kid was always a bit slow, but he’ll get to it soon.

Boxcar had just turned into the road opposite from their base.

“Boxcar, stop the car.” Slick ordered, legs down flat and sitting straighter in tense.

But Boxcar kept driving ignoring Slick which pissed off the leader. Deuce began to panic and tried to open the locked doors as Droog too manifested his cue-stick.

“Stop the fucking car! Are ye deaf now?! Boxcar, give me the goddamn wheel!!”

Slick lurched to grab the steering wheel but one big strong palm caught his head and shoved him against the opposite car door. Boxcar had his eyes, red and dimly glowing instead of the familiar purple, fixed on the road unblinking as he effortlessly kept Slick at bay. Mumbling in a hypnotised state, he said: “The Master ordered to bring my friends into the city cemetery. I will not disobey my Master.”

Slick growled angrily at the term ‘Master’ Boxcar had used, he used his legs to kicked Boxcar, his talons to scratch his meaty hand, but nothing work. Droog came up from behind and slammed the butt of his cue-stick at the base of Boxcar’s neck to render him unconscious. A little car accident was more welcomed than being ambushed by the enemy after all. However, Boxcar merely made a grunt noise and kept on driving. Not a flinch, not a blink and not even a faltering grip on Slick’s skull. The giant kept on repeating: “The Master is calling. He ordered to bring my friends. The Master is waiting. You will not escape.”

 **Repeat. Repeat. Repeat**.

Slick was going to kill whoever was responsible for this.

Finally, finally, the long journey to the cemetery ended upon their arrival. Boxcar had simply let go of Slick and the steering wheel, exited the car and walked into the wide opened metal gates of the dead. As they watched him disappeared into the misty night air, Slick offered to just leave Boxcar with his ‘Master’ and get back home. Both Droog and Deuce stared at him with identical judging eyes.

Slick sighed exaggeratedly. “There’s really no other choice, was there…?”

Equipped with an iron pitcher, a cue-stick and a bull’s dick, the three mobster’s cautiously entered the eerie graveyard to rescue their fallen friend.

xxx

When Boxcar blinked and rubbed his eyes from some irritating dusts, he found himself standing in front of a ruined mausoleum in the deepest part of the city cemetery. His neck was killing him, his brain was hurting and - How the hell did he get from the alley to here?? Did the Crew came after him? Wait, where did Problem Sleuth and his rag tag of ghost team disappeared? Why would he even be here in the first place unless… He groaned.

“Boss! This joke gets old really fucking fast, you know that right?!” Boxcar shouted aloud, as he warily eyed his surroundings.

How many times now that the Boss had whacked him across the head, rented a crane and left him to rot in an empty grave for _fun_. Boxcar shivered. Thanks to that, Boxcar had developed an irrational disgust for the graveyards.

Not fear. But pure DISGUST.

The smell of the wet earth and rotten wood; ugly, wretched creepy crawlies fucking everywhere, and that one time he was NOT in an empty grave…

Boxcar had lost his appetite for a week and that was very troublesome for the Crew when they wanted to ‘erase’ somebody pronto.

His stomach growled. He had merely ate a metal pole for tonight and he wanted to eat meat. “So fucking hungry…”

WHACK!

Hearts Boxcar was seeing stars in the sky and they were spinning in their multiple gravitational orbit shit.

Then he saw the Boss hovering over him and waving his favourite Horse Hitcher around. He could hear faintly, his raspy voice along with the other two familiar ones.

“Ye think he’s back to normal?”

“I could hardly tell Slick, when the man in question is knocked out cold and highly at risk of a concussion.”

“Hearts!!! Speak to me! You can’t die here!”

“Yeah… those worms are looking pretty damn happy all over him, if ye ask me…”

What were they saying? All he saw were stars…Stars…Stars… Wriggly thing on his nose…

“FUCKING DISGUSTING PIECE OF SHIT!! GET IT OFF!!!”

Boxcar shot up and jumped up and down forcing the earthworms off of him. He was drenched in mud, and the amount of worms was unbelievable.

Snickering at Boxcar’s running around, Slick shouted out. “S’what ye fucking get for calling someone else yer boss, dumbass!” He proceeded to crackle as Deuce helped to carefully rescue the little earth creatures from their squishy doom. The smallest Crew smiled as he found a smiling worm.

“Look Hearts! I’m sure you’ll love this cute little guy; look at his big smile!” Boxcar, who was crouching so Deuce could take off those abominations, fell on his back with a yelp when Deuce had practically shoved the thing to his face.

While the two get acquainted again, Slick and Droog both eyed the giant mausoleum.

“You got any idea why Boxcar was sent here?” Slick asked his right-hand man.

“We can’t confirm that he was specifically told to wait for us here. He might had wandered off since his goal was to bring us into the graveyard.” Droog eyed the surroundings, taking in their surroundings carefully. “Although I must say that I had felt a chill in the air…”

Slick nodded at the mist around them. “Must’ve be this mist here. Back at the house, saw a dense trail of it going to the study. Felt like ice, ain’t it?” He waved his hand back and forth of the thickening mist to prove his point. His hand was cold, as expected. Slick called for the others but stopped short.

There were three shadows behind the mist.

Slick shouted a warning and the Midnight Crew all assembled together. The four of them had their backs against one another and prepared from the enemies as an eerie echoing laughter surrounded them. Boxcar shivered when he finally recalled the familiar sound. He warned Slick in haste.

“Boss! This is exactly what happened before I passed out in the alley! It’s Problem Sleuth and his team!”

The mist dispersed in a blink of an eye and the Crew finally faced to face with the members of the Team.

Boxcar and Deuce grimaced at seeing Zombie Dick again.

Droog barely showed any reaction when he saw Franken-Pickle.

Slick glared at Vampire Sleuth who may have changed in all senses but still had the same aggravating smirk.

Both side struck a pose since shit was getting so hauntingly real, the moons themselves seemed to quiver.

Sleuth’s charming voice broke the tension with a snap.

“ _Trick or treat, motherfuckers.”_

xxx

Zombie Dick lurched and sprinted towards both Boxcar and Deuce at the same time as Droog shot off and attacked the immobile Franken-Pickle. Droog, with his agility and speed, as well as having a long-range cue stick, made his attack first by swiftly swinging his stick towards Pickle. The former Dersite had the reputation of a calm storm; even his mildest attack lurked the ferocity of a natural disaster. One swung should have rendered the Inspector black and blue or even fell into a deep shock. As he had expected multiple times before this.

Droog didn’t calculated the possibility of his cue-stick to break and splintered into pieces upon impact while the target himself was hardly scratched.

A cold hand touched Droog’s chest. The Inspector’s and his gaze met; it was perplexing how calm and silent the Inspector had become. There was this… aura of solemn and loneliness emitted by him when before, the Inspector had no inclination of leaking his deep emotions. Just mindless stuttering, a mask of a nervous wreck on the surface of a manipulative genius. And it seemed only Droog had treated this man as a real danger to the Crew, much to his chagrin.

Suddenly, he tasted iron.

Blood… blood was filling his mouth. Droog coughed as his chest felt crushed, destroyed and broken. As soon as he registered the pain, he fell onto his knees; clutching his chest and vomiting red blood. His reeling mind was quick to provide him hypothesis to this sudden injury: broken ribs, punctured lungs, too much blood pressure.

And he was _on his knees_ in front of Pickle _fucking_ Inspector. Death seemed like a much better alternative now.

Deuce had panicked when he saw Droog fell to his knees. He dropped his supply of grenades that were supposed to aid Boxcar as he beat up Dick, and ran off to help Droog. Boxcar yelped when he heard and saw the grenades fell and rolled near his feet. “Deuce! The bombs -!”

Far too late, the grenades exploded.

In a split second decision, Boxcar grabbed Dick and threw him head first into the blast as he took cover. The ground shook madly, tombstones fell and rotten trees burnt. (An explosion in a graveyard, now that’s something you never see every day…) Slick and Sleuth who had been clashing cards and keys quickly jumped out of the way upon the detonation. They spied Deuce and Droog taking cover behind a stoic Inspector who didn’t even flinched at the impact.

Slick gaped. “What the fuck is wrong with that Inspector of yers?! He’s been acting like a mindless pawn!”

Sleuth shrugged with a deep frown as he lunged towards Slick again. “ _Pickle’s body can withstand the blast. So stop getting distracted will ya?!”_

Slick and Sleuth both clashed as Slick’s Iron Hitcher met Sleuth’s suddenly materialized giant Scythe. Startled but still maintaining his cool, Slick growled out. “New blade for the season, Sleuth?” They broke apart and Slick inspected fully the weapon. Something wasn’t right with that weapon. To start with, it was huge. The handle was a white wooden material, crooked and old but seemed to have a good grip when swung. The main course here was of course, the blade. It was black iron, the same as his Hitcher, and it was oozing black smoke. Sleuth noticed Slick’s interest in the Death Scythe.

“ _It’s a pretty darb kind of blade, ain’t it? I asked for it especially for tonight, just for you Slick.”_

The scythe glitched and suddenly Sleuth held a machine gun in his hand. Slick didn’t even began to bitch about the puzzle shit before dodging the hell away from the hail of lead. Sleuth laughed as he shot barrels after barrels after Slick. “Ye son of a whore! Ye’re gonna cut down your pals too?!” Slick dodged towards the immobile Franken-Pickle, confident that Sleuth would hesitate and change tactics. Or at very least, changed the weapon.

Instead he felt hard metals bounced at him hard in the face.

“OW! What the fuck??” He managed to catch one in his haste and his eyes bulged. It was a bullet, specifically, a machine gun bullet. Slick looked up and realized that Sleuth’s bullets were bouncing off the Inspector in rapid fire. The guy was acting like a fucking Superman when a bullet get shot straight in his eye. Even though Slick had no idea who this superman was, he believed that this exclamation validated his current situation.

Vampire Sleuth was so busy firing his weapon, he didn’t realized the shadow creeping up behind him.

Boxcar grabbed Sleuth in his giant meaty hands. “Gotcha ye little sucker!”

Sleuth gasped as he wriggled about, trying to escape. “ _No fair, brute! Let go!”_ Slick cheered at Boxcar’s sudden usefulness as the giant crowed; “You can’t order anyone unless they looked into your eyes, right? Hah! Now, I’ll crushed you like a tin can!” Unbeknownst to them, the machine gun turned into a giant taser and Sleuth smirked. “ _Just kidding~”_ Boxcar shouted as hundreds volt of electricity ran through his veins forcing him to let Sleuth go. Slick cursed as he ran to attack Sleuth yet again.

But now, a giant shadow enveloped him. The ground around him and those nearby too had become dark.

Something big was coming towards the Crew… from the sky!

Slick quickly looked up as the bellowing sound of a beast roared. The sound instigated a gust of wind, and the earth trembled once more. The mobster boss merely saw a large expanse of white.

Floating in the midnight sky was something that Slick thought would have appeared back in the notorious Battlefield, where the White Kinghts and Bishops and even the King could have rivalled the enormity of the beast in his sight.

A giant Albino Whale glided through the air like a majestic beast it was and on its giant head was a body. Specifically, a rotting charred body of a zombie corsair Ace **motherfucking** Dick.

Slick’s jaw dropped.

Boxcar felt like he had wet his pants.

Deuce couldn’t even think of a happy thought.

While Droog… he just laid on the ground in resignation, yet still hoping that Deuce would carry on with the first aid before he suffocate from the blood in his mouth.

The Albino Whale glided messily in the middle of the graveyard, its giant head crashed against Boxcar; sending him flying eastward, it swiped Slick like a stick and off he flew southward, then poor little Deuce was chomped and swallowed into the mammal’s stomach. Droog made an eye contact with the dark beady pair of the beast, his eyebrows furrowed by a millimetre and the whale trembled.

Albino Whale promptly swerved 180º despite Dick’s protesting zombie moans and in the act, its massive tail slapped the Inspector westward. He crash-landed into the mausoleum, thus the sacred building was sacrificed in the name of instinctual self-perseverance.

A curious sextant fell near Droog’s body.

Sleuth, who was in the middle of chasing after Slick’s body, noticed the fall of the sextant with his super vampire sense and panicked. “ _Holy drowning Titanic!!_ ” He abandoned the chase to return the hazardous weapon back to its rightful owner, before anyone else discover it.

His panicked flight was not lost to Slick and Droog, obviously. Thinking quickly on a way to stop Sleuth in his aerial track, Slick used his Deck of Cards and threw the Chest straight on towards Sleuth’s head. The vampire yelped at the heavy weight and dropped. He was pinned flat under the Chest, shouting: “ _The heck is in this thing?! The Felts??”_

Taking advantage of this revelation, Droog sat up, winced a bit at his pained chest, and scrambled to grab the marine item. Vampire Sleuth saw this and yelled out to Droog in panic. “ _Hey Sharpie!”_ Droog’s eyebrow twitched. “ _I’m warning you out of courtesy here, do NOT shoot the Sextant!!”_ Droog ignored him as he got up and inspected the item. “A shooting weaponry yet absent of the fundamental designs. Therefore it is a glitch weapon…” he rationalized to himself as he tried to glitch it.

In a blink, the Sextant glitched into a Sniper Rifle. Eureka!

Sleuth seemed to pale even more than possible which made Droog smirked in triumph. The Crew member aimed the rifle towards the helpless pinned down vampire. Droog reflexively look through the spy glass and his finger pulled the trigger following his cruellest mafia one-liner: “ **Rest in peace, detective**.”

In his last final moment, Sleuth glared toxically into the eyes of the man, eyes bearing hate and vengeance.

A pregnant silence blew over as no gunshots were heard.

As a matter of fact, the trigger wouldn’t budged at all and Droog could only see white blankness through the useless spy glass. Droog grunted in disgust. “The Inspector carries a busted weapon… Typical.”  His eyes caught a different vision from the spy glass as he brought the Rifle down. Re-looking into it, Droog noticed that the white blank he saw wasn’t just a blank. Now he saw a paler white, patches of jasmine white and… a zombie corsair.

He was looking at the Albino whale from an aerial view through the spy glass in his hand. How the fuck…?

Zombie Dick was carrying a harpoon gun in his hand which was trailing a rope beneath him and beneath the gliding whale. The tension from the rope seemed to indicate that something heavy was being pulled from the other end, which Droog failed to see more since it was outside of the spy glass range. In a fit of curiousity, Droog moved around with his eye latched on the eye piece. _There_. He could almost see it now…

At the end of the rope was…

Droog’s head bumped against something hard and he fell on his back with a loud ‘THUMP!”

He felt more blood trailing down his wounded forehead and he suspected that he was suffering from concussion.

What else could explain the floating Franken-Pickle above him? Droog distantly concluded that he must have had bump his head against the Inspector’s dangling feet. Gog… That packed a giant wallop!

Although Pickle Inspector had the ability to float, divine intuition and do godly shenanigans, he needed to be very drunk to do so. Since he was currently under the effect of a gambit schema, the only thing that could explain why he was floating around when he was merely a super strong abomination was due to the fact that he was dangling from Dick’s harpoon line that was dropped to pick him up from the mausoleum debris.

Because if he was left to get up all on his own with that pathetic speed of his, this story will never finished.

Slick ran passed the pinned down Sleuth to Droog’s side, at the same time he kept in mind to avoid the dangling limbs of the Inspector, who was ogling at them from his height. Slick held Droog in his arms. “Get a hold of yerself, you pansy! A little bump in the head won’t be the death of you lest I stab you myself, ye hear me?!” Slick shook Droog’s body up and down to emphasize his seriousness. Droog raised his hand weakly then bitch-slapped Slick as hard as he could from his position. He growled out tiredly. “Shush the fuck up, Slick. I’ll skewered you crotch to brain even before you could dream to put a knife in me.” Slick responded then with a grumble but he had significantly calmed down.

Such was the beauty of their moirallegiance.

Sleuth felt like barfing up all the blood in his body at the spectacle: they were in public, for GPI sake!

The vampire had also conjured the Scythe into a Car Jack Scythe and elevate the ridiculously heavy Chest off of him with ease. He popped his spine and stretched left and right before spying a disoriented Boxcar returning from a field of tombstones. Sleuth grabbed his Scythe and smirked as it glitched into a military Missile Launcher Scythe. “Hey, big guy!” Boxcar looked up in surprise and his eyes widened at the weapon as Sleuth pulled the trigger. “Catch!”

The missiles, four of them, flew straight towards Boxcar who eyed it with challenge. Somewhere in the distance, an omnipotent host could be heard announcing, “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED” as Boxcar grabbed two of the missiles in his hand, twisted and used his momentum to returned back the two towards the shooter. The remaining two were then kicked one by one towards the sky and the arc trajectory set the missiles a direct route towards Dick’s whale. Boxcar yelled out in the rush of adrenaline. “Hah! Eat your fucking arrogance, bastards!”

Sleuth didn’t move as the missiles came closing in which made Boxcar slowly losing his confidence. Sleuth looked up only when the missiles were inches away from him and his red eyes and smirk held a bigger secret joy. Sleuth disappeared in an instant, away from the missiles threat. This gave the two missiles a direct pathway towards Slick and Droog who were still on the ground. Boxcar’s eyes widened as he shouted in panic, even though he knew everything was too late. “Boss! Droog! Get out of the way!!”

Zombie Dick eyed the in-coming missiles with disdain. With no hesitance, Dick opened his mouth and used Belly of the Whale to suck in the two explosives. Like some shitty Japanese anime magical animal, the two missiles were successfully absorbed into Dick’s mouth and he gulped it down, rendering his whale, Pickle Inspector and himself safe. The zombie then heard a loud shout from below and saw two other missiles heading towards Spades Slick and Diamonds Droog. At that instance, Dick felt a tug deep within his gut to absorb the missiles and indirectly rescuing the two mobsters. He opened his mouth again.

**KABOOOOMM!!**

Out of the fucking blue, the Albino Whale exploded!

Zombie Dick, Franken-Pickle and scattering meaty remains of the whale fell down from the sky like a gory version of a midnight drizzle. Once again, the Albino Whale was harshly ripped from existence and returned to the heavenly dimension beyond to be with its beloved Hired Muscle (that’s a story for another time). Amidst the falling remains, a soot-covered Club Deuce could be seen falling while blinking owlishly with a lighter still poised in his hand.

Mystery solved.

As the heaviest monster, Franken-Pickle dropped faster than the others and coincidently, his fall intercepted the missiles and another explosion occurred. Slick and Droog were blown away from the shockwave. Boxcar braced himself against the blast, unable to move a muscle. Vampire Sleuth hissed painfully at the bright blast that temporarily blinded him. “ _Shit! At this rate, we won’t last much longer!”_ He cried out in frustration before being blown back completely off his feet.

Once the blast dissipated, the cemetery scenery was in ruined. There was now a crater in the ground, coffins and skeletal remains of the dead were scattered all around, not to mention the bits of pieces of the whale covering the whole area. Everything was a messed, and the Crew as well as the Team slowly got up from the impact. Boxcar was the first to overcome the shock and went to search for his Crew members. He went straight towards the crater, to which he found an unconscious, normal skinned Pickle Inspector lying on his back. A hope rose within the giant that the Team was about to returned back to their original form soon thus providing the Crew the advantage for the next assault.

From the corner of his eye, Boxcar spotted movement. He turned, expecting to see Slick or Droog biting back curses, only to find a normal looking Ace Dick rolling onto his back, revealing an unconscious Deuce. Boxcar ran to Deuce side, checking him for any serious injuries and was surprised to find him mostly unharmed. “Don’t be too surprised, blockhead.” He heard Dick said from his position beside Deuce. Boxcar growled out. “Can’t be too unguarded with you lot any longer, huh? This had went way over a fucking joke.” He gathered Deuce in his big arm. “The Boss won’t be lenient after this, he’ll rip you to shred alive.” Boxcar smirked down at Deuce as he licked his lips. “If you’re lucky, he might be kind enough to let me have you for dinner.”

Dick barked out a hoarse laughter. “What a fucking joke, Hearts.” He received a glare from Boxcar which Dick returned with confidence. “No matter how much we tried to kill the Midnight Crew, you. Won’t. Fucking. DIE.” Dick closed his eyes as he swallowed down his dried mouth. Boxcar, who decided he had enough, turned to find his other members. “Hearts…” Dick called out weakly. “We got the pleasure of meeting with the Doc,” Boxcar’s eyes widened and his attention was now fully focused on Dick who chuckled at his reaction. “Yeah, weird, huh? The cue ball head mentioned something about his master’s return and us aiding you guys for the final battle…” Dick smirked. “Also said that you four had gotten soft from all the years of ruling Midnight City, just like us Team as well.”

Processing the sudden revelation, Boxcar clutched his head in confusion and in the effort to comprehend its meaning. The Team’s bizarre involvement with the Felt, the Doc’s desire for the Crew to be stronger (whywhywhy?), and all this mayhem caused for the sake of the Doc..? At the end of this, he merely felt… angry.

Angered by the **ridiculous** story, Boxcar yelled back. “So, what? You went along with Doc Scratch’s plan like one of his brainless green minions without questions? You’re his lapdog now, huh? S’that what you’re saying?!” He held Deuce in the crook of his one arm as he used the other to grab Dick by his front collar. “You three useless pawns don’t even have a clue just who the Doc is working under. His words are THAT guy’s will, and following the Doc’s orders is like letting HIM win! Don’t even try to say that you’re doing us a favour, because like hell you are!”

“ _It’s not for the Crew; we’re doing this for our own sake_.”

Boxcar spun around, dropping Dick while at it, and saw Vampire Sleuth gliding towards him with Slick and Droog hung in each of his arms. Both of them were awake, thankfully, but were too injured to move by themselves so they hung limp begrudgingly. Arriving beside Boxcar, Sleuth dropped them both ungracefully on their face. Slick yelled out furiously. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUR UNBORN DESCENDENTS! AND FUCK YOUR SAKE!! I’LL FUCKING BURN YOUR OFFICE, YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD, YOUR FAVOURITE BARS AND YOUR FAVOURITE CANDY STORE!! I’LL CUT YOU OPEN, CASTRATE YOU, AND FEED YOU YOUR OWN VITALS, CUNT!!!” Sleuth shut him up by kicking Slick’s side hard until he bit his own tongue.

“ _I’m flattered, Slick. Maybe next time. Right now, we got a serious matter to explain to you guys_.” Sleuth dropped to sit on Slick who made an “Oof! Fucker!” sound but nothing more. “ _From now onwards, we’ll have our own adventures to play. The Crew with the Felt and your ‘Apocalyptic Game’ shenanigans you told us eons ago, and we have to go back to the Imaginary World_.” Slick, Droog and Boxcar looked at him with a grimace as they stared at Sleuth judgingly. The detective asked in perplexed: “ _What?!”_

“You guys were serious about that?” Boxcar asked with disbelief as Slick added. “Wasn’t that just some bullshit drunken babble you guys made?” Dick growled out Boxcar. “What drunken babble? I never get drunk, remember?”

Sleuth grumbled frustratingly a bit before continuing on. “ _Whatever our bullshits are, the Doc boldly told us his master’s great plan in a roundabout complex riddle of rhymes that he thought we would never comprehend_.” With a pointy finger, Sleuth gestured at the still unconscious Inspector. “ _Maybe due to otherworldly knowledge, he didn’t count that Pickle there could decipher it. Since I made Doc Scratch swore to not interrupt our part of the deal after that one meeting, he won’t be zapping us with his shitty cue ball tricks_. _Of course, we had to swear to play our role in return._ ” Sleuth got up and went towards the Inspector. He gathered the lanky man’s body then flickered back beside Dick’s.

Slick called out to Sleuth. “I don’t fucking get it, why the Halloween theme assault? Why not your treasured ‘Sepul-thing whatever the fuck it’s called…” Sleuth frowned at the disrespect shown towards his divine final move that should not even be uttered by lowly mobsters. “ _We’re poking holes in the Doc’s plan. It’s up to you guys how you’re going to process this fight to be useful in the future…”_ Slinging the Inspector over his shoulder, Sleuth braced himself to grab Dick by his arms. Suddenly Droog spoke.

“You’re the only one still in your monster form.”

The vampire snapped his attention towards Droog. “ _Yeah, I didn’t suffered through heavy damages like Ace and Pickle. Kudos for aiming at the pumpkin, Sharpie. The poor pumpkin must be in a hella condition now…”_ He then looked at Boxcar, more specifically, at the unconscious Deuce. “ _Tell the little guy to destroy the pumpkin when morning comes. I’m pretty sure he stole our pumpkin that Ace hid in the whale’s belly, right Ace?”_ Dick grunted in an ambiguous affirmation as Boxcar looked back at Sleuth confusedly. “What pumpkin are you talking about?” Both Sleuth and Slick chuckled at the inside joke while Droog did a face-slap and groaned at the migraine he instigated.

Suddenly, smokes of darkness surrounded Team Sleuth, most likely to teleport them away. Sleuth then remembered a small detail he forgot to mention. “ _By the way, Slick!”_ Said man was getting up onto his hands and knees, upon hearing his name, he looked up at Sleuth who smirked with his bare fang shown. “ _This is our last meeting for a long time. Don’t forget how I easily beat the crap out of you with that Scythe you love so much!”_ Then, Sleuth smiled albeit sadly. “ _I’m still going to hold on to our contract…So don’t give up, okay?”_ As the last word was uttered, the Team was covered amidst shadows and disappeared, leaving no trace of them behind aside from a ruined graveyard, and a roughhoused Midnight Crew.

Boxcar and Droog watched in silence as their leader stared after the empty patch of land with a weird emotion behind his eyes. Spades Slick had a look of quiet resignation and at the same time brimming with a burning motivation. Slicked clicked his tongue and forced himself to stand up properly. “We’re going home, boys. Take some day offs and prepare ourselves.” Slick got to Droog and helped the injured man up. “S’good that we’re feeling all this pain that we’ve almost forgotten… made us focused more to bring this pain to others instead of getting it, ye get me?” Droog silently contemplated his words as he tasted, _savoured_ , the iron in his mouth.

He remembered a time when he would delivered bloody punishment to pawns and splattered himself in their bright red blood. That bloodlust he had kept away because he wanted a civilised lifestyle… how he had _missed_ it.

Boxcar carried Deuce with him as the three of them head towards the cemetery entrance. The sky was getting brighter and dawn was fast approaching. “What are we gonna do next, Boss?” Boxcar asked even though he knew the obvious answer. Yet, it was always a comfort to hear it as an order from the leader. Slick scoffed as he answered him regardless.

“We’re gonna give the Felt Mansion one final visit. The Doc had moved his piece after all this time and now it’s my turn.”

Slick gritted his teeth as his eyes glared at the remaining sight of the green moon in the sky.

“This time, I’m going to drag this whole universe down with me.”

 


End file.
